China’s stealth invasion of the Philippines

This article is a hypothesis, unproven. It is not fake news. It is real thinking. Hard data on the subject are impossible to get. I mean, do you think Beijing would invite JoeAm into the power halls to brief him on the most secret of China’s plans?

No, no. Beijing would not.

So I have collected impressions from various listening posts scattered across the Philippines and around the globe, a spider-web of observation and deduction. And I have put them together to form a picture, not as surrealistic as it may seem if we consider Russia’s deep fingernail scratches on the recent American presidential election.

This is my picture, the broad, sweeping strokes.

China thinks long term, acts with amoral determination, and pushes relentlessly out and past Western ideals of law, order, and limits imposed by humanistic thinking. Fairness is irrelevant. Truth is what you make it. Winning is everything.

What we have seen in the seas west of here is the way China works. The master plan is for China to take her rightful place as the dominant nation on earth. The method is utilitarian: diplomatic at best, military if necessary, economic for sure, and spacial, the latter being conquest, hard or soft, of those lands and seas in the way. Or useful.

The Philippines is both in the way and useful for the human and natural resources that can be deployed to advance China’s global conquest.

The Philippines is an American outpost that must be crushed, one way or another.

The Chinese conquest of the Philippines follows no single path. It is fluid, a mix of diplomatic, military, economic, and spacial persistence. Time is fluid. The initiative started long ago, well before the Philippines took up its UN arbitration case, a largely futile spit at a gigantic borg power stretching its assimilation across the globe.

There is no hurry, in Beijing. There may be bend, and delay, and reconfiguration. There is no going back.

China got Duterte elected. Chinese officials visited the Philippines prior to the elections and Rodrigo Duterte and Bong Go visited China. They were not tourists. Now President Duterte and Chinese officials walk hand-in-hand.

The Duterte/Arroyo/Marcos political alliance is a domestic front that conveniently hides the real force behind the alliance. China.

Duterte is not the driver of anything. Had Mayor Binay been elected, or Senator Poe, then China would have persisted to rid the Philippines of the American socio/political blockade. Had Secretary Roxas been elected, the venom that spewed for six years against President Aquino would have been louder, sharper, even more angry, and perhaps even physical.

President Aquino was trusted by Filipinos, he was earnest, not-corrupt, and successful at building democratic integrity and economic promise. He had to be stopped. He WAS stopped by ruthless demolition work against him, against Roxas, and against the “yellows”.

The “yellows” are Filipinos, your neighbors, relatives, friends. Your fathers and brothers, your kids. They serve in the army and PNP, they are lawyers and teachers and nurses and rice pickers. Why the hostility? If you are the person spewing it . . . why so much anger? Why the need to curse other Filipinos?

Who, really, is pushing your buttons?

Dividing the nation has been a monstrous success; it has ended democracy and eroded what little patriotism may have previously existed. The Philippines is now a utilitarian nation, an opportunistic conglomeration of incompetent privileged puppets, and nothing more. It is the flightless dodo among nations seeking to soar.

Filipinos are a gullible sort, with poverty, disenfranchisement, envy, and angers opening people’s minds to propaganda, sleazy journalism, rumors, and vengeful attacks on the establishment culprits, no matter how fictional the accusations. The riper the accusations, the more believable they are to needful Filipinos looking for someone to swing at.

Duterte trolls are in effect agents of China. Nothing more, nothing different, no matter what they think. They are China’s trolls pursuing China’s agenda.

This is not a game. It is big power and big money at work.

China is betting that the blind emotional and material needs of Filipinos far and wide, up and down the social and economic ladders, will keep them distracted. Keep them malleable. Keep them gullible.

I’m betting that China is not stupid.

Then there is the Philippines, and Filipinos. I’ll admit I’m surprised at the lack of self-reflection here, the inability of people to look inward to see their gullibility and the reasons for it. I’m surprised at the lack of passion for freedom and fairness. I’m surprised at the willingness of people to be played like pawns, easily led to attack other Filipinos.

All of that does seem just a tad . . . . well . . . not the best critical thinking.

For sure they went before the elections to China to meet with Officials.

They also went to China to vist the rich guy(among other rich fellas) who donated the mega rehab center, which was reported that from a capacity of 10,000 it was lowered to 500.

“The mega TRC was donated by Huang Rulun, a Chinese businessman and philanthropist who, according to Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial, “has no business interest in the Philippines” and whose businesses are all in China.

Ubial said Huang met Duterte thrice – twice, before he was elected president, and once after he won as president.”

My bigger concern are the loans from the Middle Kingdom. It took us decades to recover from the damage caused by the Marcoses by abusing the loans, then we are being forced to accept loans of questionable intent, whose beneficiary may be the old and new cronies of this leadership.

After reading about Russia’s possible meddling with the US election, #7 entered my mind. That Chinese plane in Davao as discussed in one of the posts here. The picture of PRD and BG on this article. These could be circumstantial proofs. Who have the conclusive evidence(s) that will back the theory?The NBI? The West? Lots of WHAT IFS. Too bad that the possibility of PH officials probing the possibility of a China’s stealth meddling theory like the US officials are pursuing the possible Russian meddling theory is nil, IMO, with the cast of characters in the present Legislature.

It is disturbing that events are happening at around the same time, as if it was coordinated considerably with each others’ apparent knowledge of their activities and intent, by subverting governments with agents of influence and possibly destabilizing their opponents.

what is realyy surprising is the willingness to tow china’s line and crushing fellow filipinos, sometimes including family and friends, in the process. i see not just hate and anger but GREED of money and power. these times have shown the worst side of us, filipinos. the teachings i have learned about the filipino values seems like they came from a very distant past and are no longer relevant in today’s philippines. very sad, very sad indeed.

Spot on. The sweeping strokes, are broad but nonetheless logical. Too logical the painted picture opens a window to an nth degree of China’s chess-like layers of moves. Fluid, just as stated. While other countries plan out on the basis of one administration term to the next, China’s dateline map towards its expansionist and global dominance are in stages that cover generations. The Philippines is China’s leverage in this stage of its assertive claim for regional dominance. Given the parochial and fractured sense of belonging amongst Filipinos, they can only be unified under an authoritarian governance. History has proven that they cannot handle democracy nor unified belonging as a nation. Given this reality of the culture, the Philippines can only thrive either as an annex or part of someone bigger. At this juncture, the bottomline is that fr the Philippines to be annexed to China or be made 52nd state od America. Anything in between will just render the country a playground and a prize for dominant countries in their game of eeny-miny-mo.

Chinese are not like us, “missionaries” wanting to teach all others our superior values and systems. They are “learners”, what others are doing that we could copy. They systematically analyze history and its players. How did the Americans acquire Hawaii, Guam or Midway? How they got bases in Panama, Cuba, all over Europe? How they lost Clark? How did Americans manage to buy their raw materials cheaper than everybody else? How can they attract the best scientists and entrepreneurs from the whole world?

Studying successful nations in the past will help understanding China today. And don’t concentrate on the results for the next quarter, think at the grand children or the generation after that.

After all when the West were still barbarians, China, from Marco Polo’s tales, was ahead of the “empire” game — and oh how it has learned and developed since then, mining grand ideas and acting on the best ways of staying ahead of the game. Seems no stopping the China train, especially if it has countries like the PH to play with.

N’Herrera, please remember history : Europe too was civilised during the Roman empire. But the western half fell to barbarian invasions. And the the Eastern Byzantine empire was attacked and almost destroyed by the barbarians from the Saudi desert under the banner of a new religion called Islam.Eventually it was captured by invading and barbarian Turks again under the banner of Islam.

And that Marco Polo’s tales were written in a time when China was occupied by the Mongols, barbarians from the central Asian steppe desert. For constantly through it’s history China has had to fight off invasion from the Northern steppes.

This reminded me of the movie I watched without reading the plot/synopsis or watching the trailer: The Great Wall, I thought it was non-fiction or historical, it was all about an alien invasion of the great wall or the great wall was built for stopping aliens.

Karl, is the Resort World located across the Manila domestic airport and beside Villamor Air Base? I saw THE GREAT WALL at the cineplex in the Casino/Mall complex. Was this the Casino in question of late? Thanks in advance.

If I may indulge in a bit foolish arrogance as to why we can’t learn from other nations:

East Asians have the Confucian Scholar-Bureaucrat as their ideal. Westerners have the Liberal (Classically Liberal, Capitalist) Entrepeneur/Businessman and Liberal (Modern Liberal, Social Democratic to Socialist) Activist as their ideal, respectively on the Left and Right.

Ah. And the Filipino? Lawyers for the old middle classes and political bloggers for the new middle classes. Which is not to say that I believe that the former is better than the latter—both are symptoms of an over abundance of “concrete” (a polite term for tactical politics, that is Machiavelli’s politics) thinking and a lack of idealism for idealism’s sake.

Or for a more biting analogy: priests who tell you to repeat scripture without understanding why, and justify things with principles that they do not bother to justify on a meta-level. Or soldiers who fight wars not knowing why.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d ?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d: Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

For History buffs: here is a mini-parallel to China’s SCS bullying. In a note accompanying Tennyson’s “The Charge Of The Light Brigade,” it is said that,

This poem was written to memorialize a suicidal charge by light cavalry over open terrain by British forces in the Battle of Balaclava (Ukraine) in the Crimean War (1854-56). 247 men of the 637 in the charge were killed or wounded. Britain entered the war, which was fought by Russia against Turkey, Britain and France, because Russia sought to control the Dardanelles. Russian control of the Dardanelles threatened British sea routes.

Mostly fought on the Crimean peninsula N’Herrera.. Which was actually populated then by Muslim Tartars..Long lost descendants of the Mongol conquests of the 13th century. The Russians kept Crimea and it was then settled by Russians. ( not Ukrainians )

In 1956 Nikita Krushchev ( in origin from the Ukraine) moved the internal borders of the USSR giving Crimea to Ukraine…And so it stayed until 2015 when Putin organised to seize it and reincorporate it back into Russia..

Thanks for the Lord Tennyson poem also. I learned it as a teenager at school here in Oz in the 1960’s. Unfortunately the British official elite were still demanding this kind of stupidity in WW1 against the Germans in the trench wars 1914-1918. Millions died. Not a few hundred as at Balaklava..

Some Tartars still live in the Crimea. But all were deported by Stalin in WW2.. A few were allowed to return in the 1950’s…And now find themselves seen as “Ukrainian allies” by Russia What a bizarre fate.

Am enjoying this bit of history surrounding THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. Thank you, Bill & NH. Didn’t know about the Tartar backgrounder of the Crimea, Russia & the Ukraine. There are quite a number of Ukrainians in our neighborhood.

@Francis, of course: the typical Filipino middle-class ideal is a “pilosopo”, not a philosopher but a sophist who argues only to defend/enhance his position in society – something Joe called the dynamics of Face and Power. A product of a (post-)colonial society where that was everything, before that there was the jockeying for power between tribal groups. There is no formative, commonly held ideal that can hold society together – this is where UP, Ateneo, La Salle, PMA etc. have all failed. Duterte only exposes everything in its ultimate hollowness.

True character is to be found only in very few, some may still develop character in this crisis – possibly real thinkers may yet develop a Filipino ideal. Beyond the cynical baseness of today.

IMO, this something to reflect seriously about. At its nominal form, this culture is also known as one of ‘palusot,’ or ‘pwede na.’ We should rather cultivate at the personal, peer and public levels a culture of ‘owning up’ to what is ours or panindigan.

Duterte is a one dimensional trapo with a one track mind and a one speech repertoire who salivates over the prospect of one man rule, even at the expense of making the philippines part of china’s one asia policy.
Duterte is part of the one percent who lives a life of privilege and entitlement paid for by the 99 percent, but a fully paid up member of the two-faced hypocritic oath.
A one trick pony who is past his sell-by date and only fit for dog meat.

In contrast to China’s stealth invasion of the Philippines whose current Administration apparently allows such invasion in exchange for oodles of silver pieces for the country’s infra projects, Macron, the newly-minted Kiddo in France — though couching his Climate Change Message to Trump’s US in diplomatic terms — seems to be picking a fight with the prickly giant. The fast-learning politician-Kiddo may be playing to the local and the European galleries. Only time will tell if he is not risking the souring of US-French relations.

Off Topic I have been watching video on Youtube from GMA etc about the attack on Manila Casino. The CCTV shows a well trained stocky man in a balaclava to conceal his face. His ‘attack’ focused on the resort gambling machines and gambling tables. He was then wounded. And then went room 510 set the room alight and then shot himself. Thirty seven people died from smoke inhalation.

It seems likely that this is an Islamic terrorist attack even though the PNP leadership are trying to persuade people that it is not. I do not see any comments about this here yet. So I am interested in knowing what TSOH members think is happening

I watched the briefing that presented the video yesterday. The narrative that it is a terrorist attack is a huuuuuuge stretch. Guy arrives alone in a taxi speaking tagalog, intentionally harms no one, sets fires to tables, steals chips, goes to leave and is shot, goes up the stairs dripping blood and drops the bag of chips, breaks into a room, sets it on fire, and shoots himself. Why promote the narrative terrorists have conditioned us to promote?

Why ? A few things make me lean that way.
1 : He did not go for the cash, just chips. Why ? They can only be used in a casino.
2 : He killed himself in that room as well as setting the room on. fire.
3: ISIS have claimed it as being done by one of their followers
4 : It’s vast distraction for the government & PNP and defense forces, to what is happening in Marawi and that is maybe the purpose of the attack : publicity and saying we can get you anywhere.

I think your imagination is quite exemplary, but speculations don’t represent fact, and it is shakey to draw conclusions on the basis of guesswork. The police have declared it a robbery. So has the President. It sure seems to look like robbery to me. But you are entitled to think otherwise.

1. Cash was probably in a hardened vault.
2. Yes, he was depressed or drugged, I imagine. He committed suicide.
3. Of course, they want to spread terror.
4. Speculative to the farthest edge of reason. It was a robbery. The guy wanted money.

Hey Joe, methinks you do protest too much..
Meanwhile back on the topic of this blog, today there is this about China’s attempts to control the activities of Chinese residents or even Australian citizens of Chinese background in Australia. It probably is similar in the Philippines.

Yes, I over-reacted, an outcome of going nuts over all the skepticism and cynicism flooding social media with a bizarre other-reality framework of angers and speculations. ps The police today asked people to stop speculating that it was terrorism.

My sense of it is that most Chinese students prefer going to US, Canada and Australia. Now for my question. Do you have any idea if such Chinese-influencing activity is also done with those in Canada? If not, what may be the reason? Is it because Australia is considered more of a gem to China in their long-range geostrategy; Australia is a sizeable continent with huge resources and potential, a price catch not necessarily as a future Chinese “province” but as a Chinese sympathizer?

Karl, thanks for the two links. The last link effectively answered my question, re the note on Chinese Canadian human rights activist Anastasia Lin. I note too that the apparent mainland organized Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) is active and not confined to just a single university.

My imagination is this —
It points to a guy who lost his pants and lost his mind. His vengence is on the tables which took his cash, that’s why he set about destroying the stuff that made him lost money. The tables took his chips, that’s why he took away a million chips.

Bill,
Remember when I told you that I first thought that the Quiapo blasts were done by ISIS, but with the benefit of hindsight we know that it turned out to be just a gangwar. And you also told me it was not ISIS.
But, I get where you are coming from.
I watched an interview in CNN with a law enforcement expert after that London incident, he said law enforcement should assume it is terrorism until proven otherwise, that is his expert opinion, but we rather not assume everything is terrorism, but maintain our vigilance. We all want to know the result of the investigation.

The joint briefing yesterday (RWM, PNP, PFD) reviewed the videos in detail. Many skeptics wondered why no video? Because it took time to go over them and put together the outtakes. The video showed the narrative as good as a commercial flick. The robber shot into doors to keep security people away. One dramatic scene showed a security guy peeking around a corner and scurrying for cover as the armed robber came into view. The security guy had no flak vest. Another shot showed the bleeding robber staring a few moments into the camera. His face wound was highlighted by the RWM official. The robber was finished, getting weak. He could have shot the camera, but seemed to have given up. He shot into the door lock to enter a 5th floor room, came back to the hall and lit a fire on the rug. He was moving slow. In the next scene, the PNP arrived in force, looked at the charred room, and lowered their weapons. Forensic tests and back-tracking from taxi driver will come next, as well as an assessment of security and response routines. It takes time to do these things. Some speculations are at the bounds of insanity (how do we know the body is the robber?). Forensics. I suggest “chill”.

Thanks guys — Joe, Bing, karl, Bill — for the discussion on the casino-chip-loving guy. Except for the damage the guy has inflicted, deaths, injuries, damage to casino properties, I sort of pity the poor gambling addict. On an alternative story — without the deaths, injuries and property damage — I would have liked the poor addict to use his bag of chips, recover his wealth and thereafter foreswear NO to gambling, even indulging in the less (?) harmful LOTTO.

N’Herrera, yes gambling does huge harm. There is a political party here in South Australia called the NXT ( Nick Xenophon Team ) which started out as one man’s attempt by an old friend, Nick Xenophon, to bring gambling here back under control. Such is the respect and admiration for Nick, that now the party he started now has 4 senators in the Australian parliament, plus my local member of the Federal parliament lower house representative ( Rebecca Sharkie ) is also a member. of NXT.

Maybe there is a lesson is this for Filipinos given what has happened ?

Also there is an even more obvious lesson about the grossly inadequate security at the gambling Casino resort. Maybe that will be sorted fairly quickly ?

They will have to sort the security stuff out quickly and credibly if they do not want to lose worldwide guests. The Philippines did hope for major revenue with these bayside casinos.

Spain refused Eurovegas because they feared negative effects on their entire society. Too much easy money from foreigners all over the place can mean dangerous temptation. Sounds a bit conservative but maybe the Philippines have been too little conservative, past 20 years?

I would like to see the security plan of the casino, emergency exits, fire extinguishers and staff training of their usage, fire properties of the building/interior materials, elevator use in emergencies, emergency evacuation and communication plans… A few simple fires killing so many? Regardless what caused the fires.

The holy story reminded me of “professional” approach at the bus kidnapping in Manila some years ago… waiting to see the selfies with the Resorts World.

The first thing I saw in the video was that the entire staff including security ran like hell the moment the gunman made his first shots – similar to what many say about the average Filipino security man, they are basically useless and run the moment things get a little serious.

The same I don’t really think Filipinos are good at emergency procedures, Mamasapano was the same thing, something outside the usual what is learned is forgotten and back to habits.

What I think everyone underestimated was the smoke and how quickly it can develop.

This is a follow up to my earlier comment re China’s interference in Australian affairs. This time by a Chinese academic resident in Australia, who last March was arrested and detained for 10 days, by the Chinese police as he was about to return to Australia from China. This is his first public comment on those events and on what he sees happening in Australia.

One’s citizenship is a restraint. Any Chinese citizen must walk and talk within the shadow of the state. Americans, too, I think. We need a ‘global citizen’ status, certified by the UN, that offers us unrestricted right of travel and speech. A country is just where we grew up. We ought not be it’s slave, or even subject.

*******
Chongyi Feng is a Chinese national with an Australian permanent residence visa. His wife and daughter are Australian citizens.

In his article, Feng refers to Chinese migrants in Australia being influenced by China. Feng does not clarify whether these migrants are Australian citizens. I imagine the majority of Chinese families who have migrated are Australian permanent residents or citizens. But most Chinese students would be Chinese nationals.

I share Feng’s alarm that China is financially supporting Chinese associations in Australia and courting former Chinese nationals as a potential fifth column brigade.
*****

With this unproven hypothesis blog, my good friend is in the opinion that seems to be so envious of the situation. I hope it is a benign envy used in the right way.
My wish is that the Philippines is an independent sovereign nation friendly to all nations.

I checked Wikipedia, here is the excerpts;

“Envy (from Latin invidia) is an emotion which “occurs when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it”.

Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness.[2] Not only is the envious person rendered unhappy by his or her envy, Russell explained, but that person also wishes to inflict misfortune on others. Although envy is generally seen as something negative, Russell also believed that envy was a driving force behind the movement towards democracy and must be endured to achieve a more just social system.[3] However, psychologists have recently suggested that there may be two types of envy: malicious envy and benign envy—malicious envy being proposed as a sick force that ruins a person and his/her mind and causes the envious person to blindly want the “hero” to suffer; on the other hand, benign envy being proposed as a type of positive motivational force that causes the person to aspire to be as good as the “hero”—but only if benign envy is used in a right way.”

The well being of the Philippines is the vision and mission of this blog, that means the objective is toward peace and progress of the Filipino people.
The modern day nation life is not a zero-sum proposition unlike during the colonial times or warring times of the past. Modern times is globalization approach, diplomacy and negotiation, multilateral and bilateral agreements, ambassadorial and ministerial meetings, loss some and win some.
Let diplomacy and negotiation works, only in peace will progress comes to pass…….

“This blog is a collaboration by people interested in the well-being of the Philippines. It is a place to think and discuss, to teach and learn.”

I copied this note from the editor, above. Was this change now?
In historical context, from 1550 – 1946, Spain, America and Japan did occupied the Philippine territory in succession.
In 1946, thanks to America, Philippines territory was given back to the Filipino people. I salute the collaboration by people interested in the well-being of the Philippines.

In addition, after the surrender of Japan, in 1951-1952, occupied territories by Japan were returned to rightful owners, South China Sea territories, Spratly and Paracel islands, Pescadores island were returned to China, ROC, as stipulated in treaty of San Francisco and treaty of Taipei duly signed by USA and Philippines and Allied nations.

Could I be wrong? Treaty documents are historical records………..
Only in peace the Filipino well being will progress……….

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This blog is a collaboration by people interested in the well-being of the Philippines. It is a place to think and discuss, to teach and learn.

The Society of Honor is published via Word Press hosting in the United States. Contributors reside in the Philippines, US and Canada, Australia, Singapore, and Europe. The blog is not accredited by any government or non-government entity, is not a member of any association or group, and is generally not an originator of news. The blog is not an advocacy of any particular cause. It is a clearing house for knowledge and insights.

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